But it likely would not have come about so soon without COVID-19 as a detonator.

"The pandemic has precipitated a situation that I expected to see in 20 or 30 years: empty churches, to which many of the faithful do not return, and a Catholicism that often no longer 'tells' people anything," explains Bishop Charles Morerod, leader of this mostly Francophone diocese of just over 700,000 members.

"I don't want my successor to be able to reproach me because I was content to just fill in the gaps even though I saw what was happening. That would not be responsible," says Morerod, a 59-year-old Dominican theologian who was rector of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (the "Angelicum") in Rome before being made bishop of LGF in 2011.

Known for taking decisive action to deal with the Church's sex abuse crisis, he did not have an avant-garde reputation when it came to other things.

But Bishop Morerod surprised many people last May when he unveiled a reorganization of the diocese that he continues to describe as a "leap of faith".

In short, he has lightened diocesan structures to better suit the reality of religious practice in French-speaking Switzerland and has given unprecedented governing responsibilities to certain members of the Catholic laity.

And they do not seem to be in any hurry to take a summer vacation.

"There are a lot of things to start if we want to get things off the ground in the autumn," explains Michel Ralcoz, who is taking time out for a lunch on a terrace in Lausanne between two rain showers.

An experienced layman in Vaud

Ralcoz, who is in his fifties and is married with three children, has been working for the LGF diocese (one of six in Switzerland) for 26 years.

At the beginning of September, he will begin a five-year appointment as the bishop's official representative in the canton of Vaud.

This is an exceptional appointment since this position has always been held by a priest with the title "episcopal vicar."

Christophe Godel, the priest who is currently finishing up in the post, does not seem at all unhappy that he'll now be pastor of a thousand meters-high mountain parish overlooking the waters of Lake Neuchâtel.

Racloz, who takes over from Godel as one of Bishop Morerod's closest collaborators, says the move is "audacious, even prophetic".

The layman's appointment, which Rome has approved, was announced at the end of May.

Racloz says he's well aware that his new job entails risks.

He knows he'll need to be careful not to become a "clericalized layperson" by giving into authoritarianism. And he'll have to build a relationship with the priests for whom he will be the hierarchical superior without sharing their state of life; some already expect him to be "like a father" to them.

Racloz served nine years as a delegate of the episcopal vicar, during which he learned to master technical issues as well as to handle conflicts.

"I always prefer dialogue, but I am able to say things — to laypeople as well as to priests," he says.

Two women in Fribourg

While the canton of Geneva will retain a priest as its episcopal vicar for the time being, a permanent deacon, Romuald Babey, is to become "representative of the bishop" this autumn in the canton of Neuchâtel.

As for the bilingual canton of Fribourg, two married women will be Bishop Morerod's official representatives.

Céline Ruffieux, 48, (pictured) will work with French-speaking Catholics in the area and Marianne Pohl-Henzen, 61, will deal with the German-speakers, something she's already been doing the past years as an "episcopal delegate".

Neither woman advocates for the ordination of women or sees any "opposition between priests and laity".

Instead, they try to promote complementarity between the different states of life and favor ecclesial structures that are more in tune with society and representative of the "people of God".

Ruffieux says that after her appointment was announced one of the priests in Fribourg promised he would work with her.

But he also confessed that he "did not approve" of the bishop's decision to put a woman in the post, saying he believed the diocesan hierarchy should be reserved for ordained ministers.

Ruffieux, who is a psychologist and teacher by profession, says she trying to be understanding.

"There are fears, of course, because we are faced with a void. We don't really have a model to follow; it's up to us to build this new reality," she insists.

A culture of participation

How did this "new reality" for the Catholic Church originate in Switzerland, which is usually seen as more discreet and less outspoken than the Church in neighboring Germany and France.

Did the Germans, who have embarked on a synodal path that has led to demands for progressive ecclesial changes, influence the Swiss?

Bishop Morerod denies this, saying the German model "sometimes leaves him a little perplexed".

Rather, observers see the recent developments in the LGF diocese as part of a culture of participation that is deeply rooted in Switzerland and in Protestantism, which is omnipresent in this part of John Calvin's adopted country.

Over the past 15 years, lay people in the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg have already been part of teams responsible for pastoral units (parish clusters).

They are also responsible for the federations in charge of interfacing between the Church and the State, which contributes — differently, depending on the canton — to the financing of pastoral work and worship.

Bishop Morerod says he would like to see all the baptized participate more fully in the life of the Church.

In particular, he supports the Network of Women in the Church, which has been active in Switzerland since 2019.

But he does not hide the fact that his recent decisions have also been motivated by more pragmatic considerations.

For example, he now sees his most competent priests "doing a job as priests"; that is, "developing pastoral units rather than being assigned to organizational tasks".

The implication, of course, is that this is not the case when priests serve as episcopal vicars.

An "experiment" for export?

These "pastoral units" are precisely one of the elements of the reorganization underway.

Faced with the decline in religious practice, the local Church intends to give up covering the entire territory in favor of islands that have become "unavoidable", according to Bishop Morerod.

At the end of 2020, he publicly declared that his diocese no longer needed so many foreign priests, a move that angered some.

In any case, Catholics of the diocese will have a chance to better appropriate — and extend — these changes during a synodal process that will begin in the autumn.

Also in the autumn, the diocesan phase of the Synod of Bishops' next assembly on synodality will get underway throughout the universal Church.

The bishop believes this coincidence will likely encourage many Catholics in the LGF dioceses to get involved in this local process.

Will these experiments be "exportable" elsewhere?

Everyone recognizes that such changes, especially the hiring of more lay people, require financial resources.

And while the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg is not the richest in Switzerland, it has more resources than the average diocese in many other parts of the world.

• Mélinée Le Priol Switzerland
• First published by La Croix International. Republished with permission

The 90-year-old German priest-professor recently told the Vienna-based Kathpress that the current Synod assembly's struggle to reorient pastoral practice in the Amazon Region "is nothing else than the implementation of the reform Francis set out in the programmatic text Evangelii Gaudium" (Joy of the Gospel).

That apostolic exhortation, issued in November 2013, was the first major document of Francis' pontificate and is considered a roadmap for global Church renewal and reform.

From the Amazon to the world: considering the local Church

Hünermann, who co-edited the five-volume Denzinger-Hünermann compendium of faith (Enchiridion Symbolorum) and a five-volume theological commentary Vatican II, said Evangelii gaudium pressed for a new concept of pastoral practice in light of local Churches' concrete experiences.

"I therefore fully share the high hopes (people have) of the synod. It is an in-depth, painstakingly prepared global Church event - simply a huge undertaking - and I am deeply grateful to the pope for launching it," he told Kathpress.

The elderly theologian, who taught at the prestigious universities of Münster (1971-82) and Tübingen (1982-97), rejected charges by the pope's critics that the current Synod assembly is somehow part of a liberal theological agenda.

He said it is rather an attempt to shape the future of pastoral practice altogether. He noted that ecological, social and pastoral issues are interwoven in the sprawling Amazon. And this, he said, means they reach much further than those of a local Church and are of "world-church significance."

"The Amazon region is a global hotspot for all those challenges we face as a world Church that humanity as a whole is facing," he stressed.

Germany's synodal procedure: an 'acid test' for Church relevancy

Professor Hünermann also weighed in on the "synodal procedure" for Church reform that Germany's bishops have launched with the Central Committee of German (lay) Catholics. He said it would be the acid test "for the Church as a whole, which is struggling for relevance in society."

He said critics of the procedure have failed to recognize how deeply the Church has been shattered by the clergy sex abuse crisis.

"They cannot see that all the reform projects under discussion - such as ordaining married men of proven virtue (viri probati), giving women more responsibility in the Church, rethinking the Church's sexual morality and installing checks and balances - can only be understood against the background of the abuse scandal, which was truly traumatic," he insisted.

Hünermann expressed confidence that the project would succeed despite inner-church opposition.

"The reform procedure must not end like the German Church's last 5-year 'dialogue process' (2010-2015), since that would mean that the German Church has had it," he warned.

Reading the messages coming from Rome

The theologian also said it's important to distinguish between the two different letters concerning the "synodal procedure" that the German bishops' conference received from the Vatican.

He said the text Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, sent to conference president Cardinal Reinhard Marx must be seen as a "classical example of certain members of the Roman Curia's traditional thinking, which strictly keeps to canon law in an alarmist manner."

On the other hand, Professor Hünermann said the pope's "Letter to the People of God in Germany" has been wrongly interpreted.

"Pope Francis merely wanted to point out that Church reforms must not mean adapting to the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) and that a synodal procedure must always have a spiritual anchor. He also particularly cautioned against acting too rashly but he did not warn against general reform," the professor stressed.

Hünermann did his initial theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome before returning to Germany for advanced studies. He taught in South America - including Argentina - for several years following Vatican Council II.

He first met the Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1969 and remained in contact with the future pope. The two men met most recently in May 2015 in Rome for private talks on Church matters.

The German theologian's teaching is believed to have been influential in Pope Francis exhortation on marriage and the family, Amoris laetitia.

• Christa Pongratz-Lippitt is a correspondent writing for The Guardian, La Croix, National Catholic Reporter, The Tablet.
• First published in LaCroix International. Republished with permission.